My GIK Acoustics Experiences

[redm]

I'd made the decision some time ago to do some room treatment. Like many others, I found it easier to upgrade cables or speakers, then to treat a room so it's one of the last thing's I've done. One of the reasons, there is less people talking about it and its very specific to your individual room.

What to buy?

How you treat your room, and what you treat, is a relatively complicated question. This is probably the number one reason I did very little. It's hard to invest money into a acoustics when you don't know exactly what your treating. I did try some acoustic analysis tools etc but without any earth shattering insights. I have carpet in the room. I have 14' ceilings and I have an irregular rear wall.

What I ended up doing is drawing the room out and providing a description of it to GIK through the website form. IMHO, these forms do not typically result in much useful information. I got an immediate response back (within 1 hour) from Glenn, whom also frequents this forum. Over a few days we exchanged information and he gave me good tips on how to treat my room and also utilize the treatments I already owned.

There was nothing earth shattering about the recommendations, they are inline with the documentation you can read on the GIK website. Incidentally, they have lots of free educational materials available and educational videos.

My Purchase

I ended up purchasing what equates to a standard room package. 6x 242 traps for sidewall reflections points, and 4x Tri-Traps. I would have purchased the soffit traps except the rooms size and speaker position prevented it. (see pictures for more details)

Fabric Selection

I went the route of a custom fabric selection from the Gillford of Maine (guilfordofmaine.com) offering whom GIK works with. Gillford is great, you can go to their website and select 20 fabric samples. They ship them to you via Fedex and they arrive immediately. Gillford publishes the acoustic properties of each fabric and you can have them added to your panels for a nominal (but varying) fee.

I highly recommend sampling the GIK fabrics, they can really make the difference in how these panels feel and fit into your room.

Purchase & Shipment

I purchased through Legend (Ivan), explained what I wanted, and he worked out the details. I'm not sure how you order custom fabrics through GIK but Ivan made it a snap as usual.

The panels were fabricated custom and shipped within a week. (that includes the time to get the custom fabrics) I received them a few days later via UPS.

One Tri-Trap had slight damage to the end-cap and I received a replacement 2 days later via UPS as well.

Build Quality

These are hand-built units, manually inspected, etc. They are made of wood, with acoustic fabrics, and acoustic wool (I believe) with a padding. They are designed with dimensions for acoustic purposes. You will be happy with the product quality, they put TLC into each one. Worth noting, the rear of the 242 traps are not finished so you would not want them exposed if you aren't putting them on a wall. The TRI-Traps are finished all the way around.

Installation

Tri-Traps

This was a bit more challenging than I thought it would be. The Tri-Traps were easy except that I have baseboards and I wanted them flush against the wall. I could have mounted them to the wall but I instead built a small stand to elevate them above the baseboard. Something to keep in mind if your purchasing corner treatments and also have baseboards. There is a picture of the triangle stand I built below, it is just 3 pieces of pine in a triangle painted black.

242 Traps

The big problem I had mounting these is they have hooks in the rear inset about 3/4 from the back. There are a total of 4 hooks incase you want to do ceiling mount. GIK supplies wire to hang them like a picture. I felt I could not get panels in a series level because of wire tension but I did not try. YMMV.

Instead, I purchased hooks and modified them from a circular shape to more of an L bracket. I mounted 2 of them per panel and rested the panels on them. It worked out well but due to the weight of the panels, I would have been better off using sheetrock fasteners with an adjustable screwing hook. At the end of the day, I got them hung and leveled.

Acoustics

Without using many subjective adjectives to try and describe the changes to my room, I think it can be best summed up by comparing it to contrast ratios on televisions. Reducing the reflections of sound waves provided a more black background. You might say it was less live or musical, I like to think that its clearer and allows me to focus on the actual music better, to hear more of whats actually being played.

Conclusion

The improvement was obvious; my wife unexpectedly noticed it immediately. If you can get a wife to hear the sonic improvement of an upgrade, something must be right! Its one of the best upgrades or changes I've made and well worth the money. Keep in mind all these changes have diminishing returns the close you get to your audio nirvana so YMMV.

An additional benefit I was not expecting was less fatigue when listening, I'm able to listen at lower sound levels enjoyably without 'fatiguing my ears'.

Overall, GIK is one of the best customer support experiences I've had in some time. I rank them 4/5 Ivan's in customer service. The build and shipment is equally fast. The pricing is great, you can do quiet a bit for relatively little. Bottom line, I don't think room treatments in general and GIK specifically get enough attention.

Pictures







If anyone has any specific questions about my GIK experience or acoustics in general, post here or send me a PM and I'd be happy to help if I can.

[Masterlu]

Derek... Terrific review, and pics! Enjoy your "new" acoustically treated room!

[jdandy]

Derek.......You did a fine job. This is an attractive installation. I am a beliver in acoustic treatment. Both my living room and studio are acoustically treated rooms. The difference is huge as you have no doubt discovered. Looking good.

[DopeyBovine]

Great looking room! I used another brand of panel, but treated my small (13' by 14' by 9') room in a similar manner. There is carpet, and curtains behind the listening seat with 2' by 4' panels (4 total) on the side walls for reflections. I know what you mean by a black background- my son walked in and said that it was "chill", because it was so quiet.

Nice job.

[thxthx]

Thanks for the review! A simply beautiful room you have... Love it

[2fastdriving]

Very well done! I'm sure it sounds fantastic.

[redm]

Originally Posted by DopeyBovine

There is carpet, and curtains behind the listening seat with 2' by 4' panels (4 total) on the side walls for reflections. I know what you mean by a black background- my son walked in and said that it was "chill", because it was so quiet.

It takes you a bit off guard doesn't it? You don't realize how much background noise is generated due to spurious echoes and reflections.

[Stereo-head]

Great review Derek....thanks for the pics. I am generally not a fan of how room treatments look in a room, but I got to say it really does look good in your room. Congrats!

[tweet]

Derek... I really like your room and setup. The new GIK panels look great and you did an excellent job on the design and installation. Well done.

[redm]

Originally Posted by Stereohead

Great review Derek....thanks for the pics. I am generally not a fan of how room treatments look in a room, but I got to say it really does look good in your room. Congrats!

Thanks, I've gotten mixed reviews on the looks, but the sound is solid. Gillford has such a wide variety of fabric styles, patterns, colors and choices, it would be hard not to find something that blended well with a room. I really found the acoustic information they publish interesting too.

Here's the Vortex series I selected: